Hot Pursuit 3
by Gisele
Summary: Hunter goes to prison, framed for murder.


Hot Pursuit 3  
  
In a hot summer night of 1989, Hunter meets a beautiful blonde woman in a supermarket near his house, where he is buying groceries. While choosing fat-free food, they make eye contact and start talking. The conversation comes along well and soon the couple heads for Hunter's house, for "coffee"...  
  
Early in the morning, somebody knocks on the door. It's McCall, who drops by to tell Hunter some important news about the case they are working on. McCall feels that Hunter is not much interested, but goes on talking even so. Sudden the woman, who had been sleeping till them, appears in the room looking for Rick. Wrapped in a sheet, she *orders* him to go upstairs... McCall looks at them and, showing disappointment, says she has to go back to her house because she forgot to feed the fish...  
  
Hunter goes to the precinct just in the afternoon. Not only is he late, but also worried. McCall wants to know what is the problem, but Hunter doesn't want to bring it up. Changing the subject, he says they must go out to track a suspect and they leave. By the end of the day, the case is solved. Hunter and McCall return home.  
  
The day after, Charlie calls Hunter and McCall and they are assigned a new case: a woman's body has been found in a downtown alley. They rush to there and Barney tells them:  
  
"This woman was shot once in the head and has been dead for 24 hours, at least."  
  
When Hunter and McCall look at her, they get shocked -- the dead woman is the one with whom Rick spent the night before! As soon as they find themselves alone together, McCall asks Hunter what happened. He stammers the girl left his house in the morning, after answering a call in her cellular phone. She didn't say anything and was in a hurry. Her name was Brittany Lee and she used to work as a model; at that moment she was unemployed. But McCall isn't paying much attention to Hunter; she is upset about he whole thing. She keeps thinking:  
  
"First, this American Don Juan sleeps with that girl; then, she turns up dead. He always gets in trouble because of his women."  
  
Hunter stops talking. McCall feels he is hiding something. And he is. He couldn't bring himself to say that Brittany stole his gun.  
  
Hunter's gun is found near the crime scene, inside a trash can. The ballistics shows that is the murder weapon. Immediately, McCall figures out that the gun was stolen from Hunter by Brittany -- somebody has made an evil plan up in order to frame Hunter for murder. Although both McCall and Charlie do believe that Hunter did not fire his gun, they cannot do anything when he is put under arrest, accused of killing Brittany Lee. McCall is completely heartbroken. She stands by Hunter, going to visit him every day. The brassy sergeant swears she will find out the truth and set her best friend free as soon as possible.  
  
But things get worse day by day. A neighbor testifies that he saw Brittany arriving at Hunter's house, hours before the crime. Besides that, the DA assigned for the case hates Hunter -- she thinks the he is far too cocky -- and is decided to send him to prison.  
  
"If the case comes to trial, Hunter will be condemned," thinks McCall. "I must do something before that."  
  
She searches for clues day and night. With Sporty James, McCall gets an important piece of information: a prostitute named Carol, who used to work as a model, knew Brittany Lee. Few days before the murder, she saw her in a restaurant, having lunch with a tall blonde woman. She preferred not to speak with Brittany, ashamed of telling her how she was making a living. As she was sitting near the two women, she overheard part of their conversation. At the time, it seemed that nothing important had been said. But after the crime, some words turned out to be intriguing:  
  
"There's no harm in doing that! Besides, you'll enjoy yourself a lot -- he's a hunk!" said the woman.  
  
"I know, I know. But are you sure that I won't be in some kind of trouble? He's a cop! It'll be just a practical joke, won't it?" Brittany chimed in.  
  
"Oh, yes, darling. I'm one of his best friends. It's just a game between us, don't worry" replied the woman.  
  
Sporty tells McCall that Carol vanished into thin air, days after the crime. McCall goes to where she lived and asks some questions to the landlord:  
  
"Her name is Carol Moore. She returned to her home town, Ojay" the man tells her.  
  
McCall heads for Ojay immediately and finds Carol's house easily. She confirms the tenor of the conversation she overheard and, at McCall's insistence, remembers hearing the name of the blonde woman: Louise. McCall wants her to go to the police and tell what she has just said, but Carol doesn't want to go, she is scared; she is afraid of being killed by Louise.  
  
Back to the precinct, McCall figures out that what happened to Hunter was planned by somebody seeking revenge. Would it be anybody he arrested or any obsessive, despised woman? She goes to tell Hunter the news. For the first time, she notices he is really downhearted. But just at the sight of McCall, he feels a lot better. After talking, Hunter reminds McCall about Louise Remings, the woman who ordered the shooting that almost left her paralyzed for the rest of her life. He says she is the only Louise he knows, or remembers to know, at least.  
  
Louise had been sentenced to life imprisonment for murder and should be in prison -- but she wasn't. The criminal had escaped some months ago, after being taken to the hospital because a (fake) illness. It takes months, but McCall finally finds Louise in San Diego. After a gunfight, she is arrested again -- this time wounded seriously in the chest. In the hospital, feeling at death's door, Louise confesses she set Hunter up. After being arrested by him, little by little, she developed an obsession about Hunter, a mixture of love and hate -- the hate winning the battle.  
  
Hunter and McCall are walking along the beach, in front of his house. He is extremely grateful to DeeDee for her support, for all she did. He knows that without her perseverance in seeking the truth he would probably have had his life destroyed. He hugs her with tenderness; they watch the sunset. 


End file.
